


[Title: To be inserted by the Sub-Editor, Date: 23 February 2025]

by Emma_Oz



Category: I Want To Go Home! - Gordon Korman
Genre: Happy Ending, M/M, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-04
Updated: 2016-11-04
Packaged: 2018-08-28 22:53:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8466043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emma_Oz/pseuds/Emma_Oz
Summary: A naive reporter tries to interview a elusive subject and thinks about Swedish Olympians.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [syllic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/syllic/gifts).



I have a handful of photos of the elusive Rudy Miller.

The earliest is the standard Sport Canada photo of him taken in 1984. He looks straight at the camera, eyes an indeterminate colour in the black and white. At first I am tempted to say that the striking feature is his beaky nose, but really it is how young he looks.

Miller was, of course, only 17 when he took Gold in the Men’s Epée Individual. In normal times this would have lead to extensive press coverage – the baby of the team, future hopes of Canada, you can imagine the headlines – but 1984 was an exceptional year for the Olympics. 

In response to the American-led boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, fourteen Eastern Bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, Cuba and East Germany, boycotted the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, citing ‘chauvinistic sentiments and an anti-Soviet hysteria being whipped up by the United States’. With so many countries not participating, there were numerous nail-biting spills and surprise wins.

Primarily due to the Soviet Union-led boycott of the Games, Canada enjoyed its best-ever results in the Summer Games. We came in sixth place in the number of Gold medals won and fourth place in the total medals won. This is more than double our second best total in 1996.

Any press attention that was left from discussions of geo-politics and Canada’s storm to victory, was focussed on the introduction of synchronised swimming as an official Olympic sport. There are numerous articles about the pixie-like and photogenic women’s synchronised swimming team, but only one press item I can find about Miller. 

Miller declined to be interviewed by the Toronto Star, but the reporter spoke to his team mates and coach who described him as immensely talented, phenomenally focussed and not a natural team player. ‘The individual event was definitely for him,’ Coach Owen said. ‘A good kid, but a loner.’

Almost the only human touch in an otherwise boilerplate description of an Olympian was a comment from a team mate who said that Miller had told him he was competing to improve his resume for college applications. ‘He wanted to go to Dalhousie. His grades were OK but he didn’t have a lot of extra-curriculars. Rudy was not the kind of guy to join clubs, but going to the Games is the sort of thing that catches the eye of the people in Admissions.’

Miller got his Gold, went to the university of his choice, and essentially disappeared from sight. The prospect of interviewing someone who is so resistant to the press is an intimidating one.

Which brings me to the next photo. By 2004 the Sports Canada official photographs were taken in colour and Miller had grown into his nose. He was an unusual pick for the marathon in many ways. At 36 he was just past the prime long distance running years, and the marathon is usually dominated by Ethiopia and Kenya. Miller’s Gold came out of nowhere.

And, of course, Miller was unusual in that he competed in two completely unrelated sports. In the small world of multiple Olympic medallists, it is more common to win in related sports, like volleyball and beach volleyball, or bobsledding and the luge. Not many athletes have won in one sport based on speed and fine movement and then again in a separate endurance event.

Investigating this lead me down a Google black hole. Most of the extraordinary wins in ridiculously different disciples were in the infancy of the Olympics, when sports were undertaken by amateurs. Basically whoever turned up seems to have been given a shot at the sport of their choice. 

Let me introduce you to Sven Alfred Thofelt was a Swedish athlete who won Gold in 1928 in the modern pentathlon and two team medals in 1936 and 1948 for fencing. He fenced in 1932 with a broken arm and cracked ribs due to a bad fall from his horse in the pentathlon. Talk about incompatible sports. 

Did you know that Torsten Oswald Magnus Holmberg won Gold for Sweden in gymnastics in 1908 and 1912 and also a Bronze for the tug of war in 1906? Did you know that the tug of war was at one time an Olympic sport?

Also, what is it about Swedes and the Olympics?

The stock photo of Miller is joined by some candids. By 2004 there were digital cameras around and the internet. My favourite is a shot of him standing with his partner Mike Webster, looking up at the fireworks at the close of the Games. Webster is making the classic ooooooh! face of a fire works watcher, and Miller has flung an arm around his shoulders. 

Miller was slightly more open to the press this time round, and my favourite article is a profile by Gordon James which ran in the Toronto Star. He visited Miller in their messy, comfortable house in a semi-rural area and James seems to have been charmed. 

Charmed, if not by Miller who was working in private security and was non-committal in his answers to most questions, then at least by Webster and their adopted sons. 

Webster is a paediatrician with a degree from Dalhousie, running a very successful practice. At the time he was mostly focussed on their recently adopted sons, Michael (13), Jordan (10) and Matthew (14).

It was because of Matthew that Miller got into running. ‘He’s a high energy kid,’ Webster said, ‘Wearing him out was good for all of us. Rudy used to take him on five mile runs no matter what the weather was like.’

Miller continued running with Matthew even after he began serious training for marathons. While at school Matthew went on to set several State records that still hold. Matthew still runs the occasional marathon with Miller, usually fundraising for SPD, a group that champions kids with Sensory Processing Issues. 

I notice that Webster never defined Matthew or put him into a diagnostic box in the interviews, but Matthew seems to have accepted the diagnosis in later years. SPD is very often associated with ADHD, which might explain why Matthew had energy to burn. 

Of course, it doesn’t say how Miller did it.

Which brings me to the present. I feel nervous as I approach the house. It still looks comfortable and is probably less messy now as their youngest son recently left for college. The grass needs mowing and the garden is full of trees and annuals that require little work. 

The door is opened by Webster. He has the same ready smile and permanent wrinkles by his eyes. He wears glasses now.

‘Come in,’ he says, and apologises for the mess. He had just got back from a conference in Vancouver and Miller had been in meetings there too. Probably related to his work, but Miller won’t answer my questions on that.

Webster leads me into a homey kitchen, decorated in yellow. There’s fruit on the counter but he offers me cookies. ‘Not made by me,’ he says, ‘Trust me, you don’t want to eat anything I cook.’

Just then Miller comes in through the back door. He looks less dapper than in the most recent Sports Canada stock shot. He isn’t in his competing gear and has a smear of dirt running across his cheek to his nose. 

He looks carefully at the cookies and Webster assures him that they were baked by the mother of one of his patients. He takes one and then holds up three fingers. ‘Three questions,’ he says. 

‘Did the third Gold feel different to the first two?’ 

‘No’. 

‘Moving to the equestrian events must have been a huge change. What was different about the Men’s Show Jumping?’

After a long pause, Miller finally replies. ‘It involves horses.’

I can’t tell if this is a joke but Webster finds it hilarious so I go with it. I decide to chance my last question.

‘Can I see Sailor?’

This was apparently the right question because Miller brightens up. We walk over to the field where Sailor browses. He’s a ten year old champion with a glossy black coat. 

He whickers when we come up and Miller pets him absentmindedly. I am surprised to see there’s a menagerie in the field with him. Two fat ponies, another horse and a very large, very dirty goat. 

‘Champ is mine,’ Webster says, feeding him an apple. ‘And the ponies are for our grandkids when they come by. Vestibular activity, very good for developing balance and a sense of where they are in space. Also, fun.’

‘We try hard to be the cool grandparents,’ Miller adds drily. 

He offers me an apple and I give it to the goat on the grounds that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to feed a companion animal.

The two animals spend most of their time together. When they are in the field, they prefer to feed together. And in the stable they sleep together. I had trouble believing this, but they showed me a photo of the goat asleep on her side between Sailor’s legs. It’s just about the funniest thing I‘ve ever seen.

Miller has warmed up a little and I try him with the questions again. ‘You are one of the oldest athletes to win Gold, how does that feel?’

The oldest Olympic medallist is generally considered to be Swedish shooter Oscar Swahn. He won a Silver medal in 1920 when he was 72 years old. Overall Swahn won 6 medals in a shooting sport called “running deer” that is no longer a competitive event.

Yep, Swedes and the Olympics.

I get a better answer this time. ‘I was proud of Sailor.’

Webster snorts. ‘Yeah, all you had to do was hang on.’

That’s hardly an accurate description of the Individual Show Jumping, which involves going over a course with of nine jumps up to 1.6 meters high, 2 metres wide and water jumps up to 4.5 meters, all the while going as fast and as accurately as possible. It is a fast paced sport based on the premise that the horse and rider who lay down the fewest rails in the fastest time win. 

When we return to the house, we have coffee and I accept one of the cookies. We sit around the kitchen table, which seems to be the standard operating procedure.

Miller even volunteers a shred of information. He took up riding about the time he stopped working with Washington. He doesn’t say much but is clear that he dislikes the trends in domestic security since 2001.

‘I got into it because I was interesting in designing systems to keep bad guys out,’ he said. This is modest because Ottawa sources say he has a genius for figuring out the weak points in any security and game playing how to enter the most secure facilities. 

‘But I decided that a lot of the people in Washington are not people I want to work with anymore.’ I expect this is another understatement. 

‘While I was at loose ends we got Merrilegs for our oldest granddaughter. Then I got a horse to ride with her.’

‘Champ,’ Webster puts in.

‘And then we got Sailor,’ Miller adds, as though this explains how he wound up with another Gold medal.

The medals are hanging on the wall in the lounge room. I spot them as we are leaving, next to Webster’s medical certificate and a framed photo taken on the day the adoption of their boys came through. There are smiles on every face in the photo.

They escort me back to my hotel and there’s some awkward milling about in the lobby as they try to decide if they should eat in town or subject themselves to their own cooking. 

The last I see of them they are walking back to the car together. Miller is speaking, too quiet for me to hear, but whatever he says makes Webster laugh and wave goodbye to me. They have decided to head home.

**Author's Note:**

> Individuals:
> 
> My apologies for erasing them to Philippe Boisse of France who really won the Men’s Epée in 1984 and to Stefano Baldini of Italy who really won the men’s marathon in 2004. Also, my congratulations to them for actually winning in pretty amazing ways.
> 
> Sven Thofelt was a ridiculous over-achiever, who competed at Olympic level between 1929 and 1948, and also served as an adjutant to King Gustav V and an IOC member. In addition, he was a total hottie if you care to Google his image.
> 
> There is little about Torsten Holmberg on Wiki so I can’t tell you any more about him.
> 
> Oscar Swahn competed at three Olympic games and won six medals, including three Gold. He is the oldest Gold medallist, with his 1912 win in his home country of Sweden. He is also the oldest medallist of all time, with his Silver in the double shot running deer in 1920. In all these games he competed with is son Alfred Swahn.
> 
> Sweden:
> 
> I knew nothing about Swedish athleticism before writing this, and I am astounded to learn from Wiki that Sweden is the ninth most successful nation in the Summer Olympics by medal count. If you count the Winter Olympic tallies as well, they come in seventh which I find astonishing for such a country with such a low population.
> 
> Then I looked up all-time Summer Olympic medal count by population and it turns out that Sweden is the second best nation if you look at per capita success. Go Sweden. 
> 
>  
> 
> Important:
> 
> The idea of Mike as a paediatrician comes from Calathea’s series A Very Long Summer. This fits with my own reading of their characters. After all, Mike was sent to Algonkian as a reward for his excellent marks and Rudy was sent on the advice of his guidance counsellor.


End file.
